Sure, Iran did that thing in the Gulf of Oman. Why wouldn’t they? They decided its time to demonstrate they didn’t want to get jerked around forever by sanctions designed to strangle their economy. Sanctions for what? For keeping the deal they made with Obama. Yeah, Barack Obama, the guy who could think and talk and execute a handshake and who you could believe. An actual President.
So, nobody got hurt in the Gulf…not like when Israel “mows the grass” in Gaza with a couple of thousand dead, many under 10 years old, while right wing Israelis dance in the street chanting “Tomorrow there’s no school in Gaza, they don’t have any children left.” Sick.
The Iranians…Persians…took a chance. They made a carefully calibrated strike. Nobody got hurt and no US assets were touched. They got to take America’s temperature. Interesting, no real public outrage. Quite the opposite. Many didn’t believe Trump or Pompeo… only when the Military (Central Command) weighed in were people willing to trust their own government. No President in our history has had such a trust deficit.
Israel First types, like Sheldon Adelson’s favorite columnist, Bret Stephens, formerly of the Jerusalem Post, now of the New York Times, were salivating at the prospect of a muscular American reaction. After all, isn’t that what Adelson paid for when he came in for Trump $30 Million strong in the last ten days of the Election? He didn’t come in with that kind of cash hoping for peace or good government. He came in for an Iran wipe out…”nuke them in the desert and tell them the next one is in downtown Tehran” as Sheldon said with typical subtlety. If Sheldon wanted peace and good government, he could get a bellyful in Switzerland. They’ve always got room for one more billionaire taxpayer.
The key takeaways from the incident in the Gulf are: 1) Our Military has credibility. 2) Trump, Pompeo, Bolton have no credibility. 3) There is no American appetite for another “preemptive” unnecessary mideast war urged on us by Israel and their hyper-active friends in the US. 4) There has not been a “Peace Lobby” worthy of the name in the US since the end of the Vietnam War. 5) The public reaction to the incident in the Gulf tells me there is a constituency for pro-active peacemaking on the left and in the middle and a “do this or we’ll kick your ass” approach is dumb and dangerous.
Comments are welcome at tomc[at]wednesdayswars[dot]com. Comments will be addressed in subsequent posts.